Born to a poor family in Guangdong, Bow Kum was sold by her parents for $40 and later bought by Lau He Dong, a member of the Snakehead gang in San Francisco, for $3,000.

Lau fell in love with her, but Bow Kum chose to marry a gardener and ran away with him to New York. Lau's love quickly turned to hate and he asked his gang to seek revenge. On August 15,1909, Bow Kum was brutally murdered. Her husband was also part of a Chinese gang and they fought back. The war between the Chinatown gangs lasted more than a year. On January 11,1910, the alleged killers, Lau He Dong and Lau Shong, were acquitted because each of their gangs produced contradictory evidence, and the jury could not decide who the real killers were.

The U.S. and the Chinese government brokered talks between the rival gangs at the end of 1910. New York's Chinatown eventually regained its peace in 1913.